


Talk

by orphan_account



Category: Steven Universe - Fandom, Steven Universe: Future
Genre: Angst, Connie POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, One-Shot, don’t actually know if this counts as fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Steven needs to process everything that’s happening. He isn’t in the right headspace to think through it or talk it out. He just needs to experience.Thankfully, he trusts someone who can do all the talking for him.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 12
Kudos: 130





	Talk

Steven never stops shaking.

Never looks up. 

Never lets go.

He’s lost in his own mind and sinking into the bed beneath them, and Connie isn’t going to let him slip through her fingers. 

She clutches him, as tightly as she possibly can and just... listens. Listens to his shuddering breaths. His gulping, choking, irregular gasps. He’s hurting, and Connie never asks him what’s wrong. Never expected an answer. 

A sudden wracking fit nearly loosens her grip. So she tightens it. Locks her arms around Stevens back as he wheezes over her shoulder, clutching her shirt like it was the only things keeping him alive.

So Connie whispers to him. Hushing and holding and flooding his senses with sweet little nothings that in that moment must have meant  everything . She hums and rambles on and on. Whispers jokes that she laughs at. Mumbled stories that she’d once swooned at. Hums songs that they’d written together. Songs that she’d written for him. 

Connie doesn’t stop talking. Not for a minute. Not for an hour. Not for the eternity that it feels like they’ve been sitting there. She pulls Steven close and doesn’t let go. Warms him up in an effort to stop his endless trembling. To ground him. To keep him afloat and with her. 

She talks until Stevens breath is small and shaky. Rattling and weak. It might not be happy. It might not be painless. But Connie just wants to makes sure that he’s  _alive_.  Breathing and conscious and aware of where he is.

Steven is alive, and Connie thinks that it’s been far too long since he’d last looked like that. So content in her arms. So safe.

Eventually, Steven is calm against her body, breathing steady and much less desperate. He still hasn’t said a word. Still hasn’t stopped shaking. Still hasn’t let go and looked at her.

So Connie keeps on talking. 

Talking, Connie realizes, isn’t at all how Steven had described it. Back when they were younger and his voice was strong and bursting full of life, and he would never stop  talking .

He’d roar speeches of enjoyment and hand himself over to forces unknown to him. He’d laugh and cry and spread his wisdom to everything within his reach and it had  _ worked _ . She’d watched him, from a distance, as he would shout and yell and sing himself hoarse for peace and love and laughter and everyone and everything else. 

He did so much for others. So much that Connie could only dream of accomplishing with just her words. Her own, fumbling, forgotten words. 

It only occurred to her later in life that Steven might have been following a path that simply wasn’t worth following. A path that wasn’t the pacifist-loving solution he had chalked it up to be. 

He didn’t know it yet, not like Connie knew it now, but Steven had been pushed to the side and left to drown in the aftermath of his battles. He’d given up his life vest to Pearl, his flare to Garnet, and the paddles to Amethyst. The boat itself he gave to the gems as a whole. Connie watched it all, eyes gleaming with misdirected admiration and never realizing how awful it could be.At the time, it was impossible for her to realize how badly Steven choked and screamed and fought in the water he was left in. When his weak, gurgling body had finally been recovered, even she couldn’t tell him what he had left. 

No, Connie is thankful that she doesn’t feel a sinking, plummeting hole in her stomach. Doesn’t feel like every word she mutters is a stolen breath, ripped from her lungs and reworked into a poisonous, suffocating, gas. Connie is happy that she could be there. That her words could mean so much to somebody who _means_ so much. She’d never been great at comforting her classmates, but with Steven, she seemed to find all time in the world. 

Connie _wanted_ to be there for Steven. Wanted to promise him her dedication and love. Wanted to fight by his side and give it her all. 

_With_ him. Never _for_ him . It was simple. Connie had just wanted to help in any way she could. 

She looks down at Steven then, feeling him him quake with unwanted vulnerabilityand desperately trying to melt into her hold. She wonders, sickly, if Steven had ever _wanted_ to help _anyone_. That maybe he just felt the need to do it, and was never given the chance to choose differently. That he lived to serve and serve and _serve_ , and had finally been kicked to the side when his service was no longer necessary. As if he had just quit a job instead of being told his very existence was unneeded. Connie wonders if  he could just change his mind and find something new at _all_ after all this time. If he was expected to change and bloom and grow just the same as everybody else, when he’d never been allowed the chance to before. 

She doesn’t like thinking about it. Doesn’t like looking down at Steven and wondering about his life and emotions like she used to. 

Connie keeps talking to distract herself, mumbling about some story with her parents and a broken blender. 

Eventually, she runs out of songs. Out of stories. Despite her best efforts, concerned paranoia seeps into her wording and all Connie wants to do is reassure and help Steven make everything better. 

She tells Steven that she’s there. With him. That she won’t be leaving until she knows he’ll be alright. That she’ll always be by his side, even when it doesn’t seem like it. 

She’d meant for it to be reassuring. To hold him up and tell him that he isn’t alone. Connie feels a mix of surprise and disappointment when Steven doesn’t lighten up. 

Instead, he pushes his face into her shoulder, clinging tighter and tighter than ever before as his breath hitches painfully in his throat. All it takes is one simple phrase and all of Connie’s progress is undone. 

Steven does sob then. A loud, scratchy, wail that seems to pain him with every second that goes by. He’s trembling even harder than before, pulling and pushing and squeezing as if he was trying to fuse with Connie. 

Trying to forget himself and become someone new.

Trying to disappear. Desperate to stop existing in the midst of being so  alone alone _alone_ amongst the trauma his life had forcefully gifted him. 

Maybe she’s just hearing things, but Connie swears she hears a muffled, broken, _liar_ in the middle of his murmurs. Quiet begging and crying for something even he probably didn’t understand.

Steven keeps squirming. Keeps trying to press himself into Connie and disappear altogether. She notices, faintly, that he’s still shaking. 

When Steven gets a little too desperate, Connie places a gentle hand on his shoulder, pushing him away so that he can actually look at her. He lets out another sob at the loss, eyes squeezed shut, and face shockingly dry.He trembles and curls and folds into himself, taking Connie’s hand with him with a desperate shudder. 

“Steven...” Connie whispers, so softly that she doesn’t even feel it slide from her tongue. Steven doesn’t respond, and Connie finds it impossible to look at him any longer. His dry, breaking face. His closed, denial injected eyes. So she hugs him. So close that she can’t see him. So tightly that both of them are positive that he isn’t going anywhere. That _she_ isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s okay,” she tells him, so gently that, just for a second, Steven stills. “It’s okay to cry. You’re _supposed_ to cry when your upset. You don’t have to hide it. Especially not around me.” Connie’s voice breaks, and she doesn’t look at him when Steven finally responds.

His voice is tight, straining to come loose and forcing itself to squeeze through his teeth. 

“I-I  _ can’t _ ,” he stutters, and his body shakes and shakes and shakes like it’s going to  _ break _ . Break from pent up emotions and pop from rising stress. Connie presses her lips against his forehead, whispering quiet reassurances and linking his fingers with her own. In the end, a pained keen and an unsteady hug tells Connie all she needs to know. Steven wants to be honest. Wants to be open. He just needs a little time. A break to just experience everything crashing down around him before he even considers processing it.“Not now,” he groans, and it’s a pained, heavy thing. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I want to... bu-but not now. Not now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I want to. I really want to but I-“

Connie nods in understanding, resuming her hushing and singing and humming and talking. She keeps talking over Stevens frantic apologies, which only serve to swarm and suffocate him. Keeps talking until his begging dies down and he’s finally calm. Steven breathes, unsteadily in her ear, and his heart rate finally slows to a rhythmic beat. 

Connie’s voice feels raw when she finally puts it to rest. Her eyes settle closed, and her hands cling to Steven, cradling and holding him like he was always meant to be there. As she drifts off, it’s impossible not to think about him. She thinks about how, even in his sleep, Steven never stops shaking. 

**Author's Note:**

> I just needed a break from my other work (which I wouldn’t recommend to those sensitive to abuse/non-con, etc) which was getting a little... uh claustrophobic to me? Lol, I guess that’s how I’d describe it. I was in the works of a couple of intense scenes and felt the need to step back and take a break. Nothing was working and I needed something new to take my mind off of things.  
> Anyways, Steven is a character I relate to on a very personal level, and these last few episodes were really fucking painful for me to watch. I just wanted him to be able to feel things out. It seemed to me like he was trying to hard to fix a problem he hasn’t even acknowledged yet, and I thought I would just write him reacting to said problem as it finally comes down on him.


End file.
